Ah, mademoiselle, if you knew what sweetness suddenly filled the
world at my first sight of you!"
I took her hand in mine. She made a weak effort to withdraw it; I
tightened my hold; she let it remain. Then she turned her blue eyes up to
mine with a look of infinite trust and yielding, so that I felt that,
rapid as had been my own yielding to the charm of her beauty and her
gentleness, she had as speedily acknowledged in me the man by whom her
heart might be commanded.
As we sat thus, the gypsy within, who had been for some time aimlessly
strumming his instrument, began to sing. The words of his song came to us
subdued, but distinct:
"The sparkle of my lady's eyes--
Ah, sight that is the fairest!
The look of love that in them lies--
Ah, thrill that is the rarest!
Oh, comrades mine, go roam the earth,
You'll find in all your roving
That all its other joys are worth
Not half the joys of loving!"
"Ah, mademoiselle," I whispered, "before yesterday those words would have
meant nothing to me!"
She made no answer, but closed her eyes, as if to shut out every thought
but consciousness of that moment.
And now the gypsy, in an air and voice expressive of sadness, as he had
before been expressive of rapture, sang a second stanza:
"But, ah, the price we have to pay
For joys that have their season!
And, oh, the sadness of the day
When woman shows her treason!
Her look of love is but a mask
For plots that she is weaving.
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